For anyone naive enough to believe that Central Bank governors’ work is based on solid evidence-based science — forget it! What the newly broadcasted Swedish documentary Debt Fever convincingly demonstrates is that the work of Central Bank governors is little more than subtle storytelling charlatanry—and they know it themselves! In the documentary, Financial Times journalist […]
Reading
Use to discuss topics unrelated to recent posts.
In honor of Doctor Who Day, a look at how the anniversary specials have evolved from ratings-grabbing events to character-centred efforts.
Sixty years ago Milton Friedman wrote an (in)famous article arguing that (1) the natural rate of unemployment was independent of monetary policy and that (2) trying to keep the unemployment rate below the natural rate would only give rise to higher and higher inflation. The hypothesis has always been controversial, and much theoretical and empirical […]
Since the early days of his G20 leadership, Brazil’s President Lula put fighting inequality centre stage, and at the Heads of State Summit this week, delivered a groundbreaking agreement that could begin to tackle the extreme and destructive chasm between the super-rich and the rest. Leaders meeting in Rio signed and sealed a historic deal […]
Dear ES/PE community members, find below an abundant and excellent list of great academic opportunities: 17 calls for papers for conferences (some are partly or even fully funded) and special issues, 13 postdoc positions, 5 job openings, 5 PhD scholarships, 2 summer schools, 2 grants, 2 visiting positions and an award in economic sociology, political […]
Animal Thanksgiving! That’s from a couple of years ago, but I have to assume that zoos around the country will be doing something similar this year. Those are lemurs enjoying their T-Day dinner. The Oregon zoo: Denver Zoo: We aren’t the only ones feasting today! Our leucistic raccoon sisters, Pecan and Cashew, enjoyed a delicious Thanksgiving feast made up of hard-boiled eggs, clams, crawfish, pineapple, edamame, sweet potato, green beans, peas and carrots. Raccoons are omnivores, so these items are all staples of their daily diet. Our Nutrition Team presented these foods in a fun new way for our girls! These goats at Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium in Tacoma, Washington, had a lot to be thankful for this season, given a huge Thanksgiving feast of vegetarian fare and even “mocktails” made from beet juice, according to the zoo.
David Sirota has a plan for Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and Vivek Ramaswamy’s government efficiency department.
The Intercept’s lawsuit argues that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act prevents OpenAI from stripping a story’s title or byline.
The post The Intercept’s Lawsuit Against OpenAI Advances on Claim It Removed Reporters’ Bylines appeared first on The Intercept.
The richest man in the world is getting a lesson in Trump. Doubts abound as to whether he will graduate in 2028 with a four-year degree in Trumpism: It is now a parlor game in Washington and Silicon Valley to speculate just how long the Musk-Trump relationship will last. The answer, as discarded aides from Mr. Trump’s first term will tell you, may depend on Mr. Musk’s ability to placate the boss and keep a relatively low profile — but also to shiv a rival when the time comes. In short, how to play the politics of Trumpworld. Most of the people who now surround Mr. Trump in the transition are battle-tested aides from his past fights, or decades-long personal friends. Mr. Musk is neither. What he brings instead are his 200 million followers on X and the roughly $200 million he spent to help elect Mr. Trump. Both of those have greatly impressed the president-elect. Mr. Trump, gobsmacked by Mr. Musk’s willingness to lay off 80 percent of the staff at X, has said the tech billionaire will help lead a Department of Government Efficiency alongside Vivek Ramaswamy.
Trump is choosing people based on how they defend him on television and (surprise!) that’s not the best way to vet people for big jobs in the government. He’s already lost Gaetz. Who’s next? The Wall St. Journal sez: Members of President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team were blindsided by the latest details to emerge about a 2017 sexual-assault allegation against Pete Hegseth, increasing their frustration with the man nominated to lead the Pentagon, according to people familiar with the matter. The transition team, which hadn’t been told about the original allegation before announcing Hegseth, was surprised again late Wednesday night when the Monterey, Calif., city police released a report about the 2017 allegations. The heavily redacted report details a boozy night at a hotel in California, a poolside argument and two conflicting versions of what ultimately took place inside Hegseth’s hotel room. The Monterey police said a redacted version of the report had been released to Hegseth on March 30, 2021.
A new way to deter Jaws.
The post You’re Gonna Need a Bigger Light appeared first on Nautilus.
Tom wrote about the the ever slipping “mandate” this morning, quoting from that NY Times piece “The Landslide That Wasn’t.” Mar-a-lago is hopping mad: Trump transition team spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt on Friday took aim at Politico and The New York Times for reporting on the fact that President-elect Trump didn’t win the popular vote by some resounding majority. It was not massive and it was not historic. In fact, Harris has now received almost a quarter of a million more votes than Trump did in the higher turnout election of 2020 — you remember the ine he bragged about being the highest number by any incumbent in history? Basically, we’re back to crowd size arguments. And if you ask a Trump supporter what’s going on they’ll either say the votes counted since election day are all fraudulent or that it’s fake news. Deal Leader got the greatest victory in the history of the world. Everyone knows that.
One step forward two steps back: Women have made significant gains in Congress in recent elections, but that progress has stalled for the first time since 2016, falling short of the current record levels. The latest woman to lose her race is Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola, with NBC News projecting her defeat to Republican Nick Begich in Alaska. One other female lawmaker, GOP Rep. Michelle Steel, is locked in a tight and uncalled race in Southern California, where she is currently trailing Democrat Derek Tran by a narrow margin. If Steel also loses, the number of women in the next Congress, including both the House and the Senate, will reach 150 (including the eventual winner of Iowa’s 1st District recount between GOP Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Democrat Christina Bohannon). That means the next Congress could begin one fewer woman than the 151 who were in Congress on Election Day, according to data from the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University’s Eagleton Institute of Politics — the first decline since 2010 and only the second since 1978. 151 out of 535. And shrinking.
“House Speaker Mike Johnson declared Wednesday that lawmakers and staff will have to use the restroom corresponding with their biological sex, a statement directed at Sarah McBride, the first transgender person to be elected to Congress, months before she is set to arrive on Capitol Hill.” — AP
- - -
I needed to fix my lip liner, which got smudged after I drank coffee from my mug.
I had to go number two so urgently that it outweighed my crippling social anxiety around doing it at work.
I hadn’t applied makeup before coming into the office and wasn’t planning on wearing any that day, but then the cafeteria worker I chat with almost every day saw me and asked me if today was my first day here, so I needed to apply a full face of makeup.